35 days and Counting: Reconnecting with my Intention to Teach Yoga

I entered into this training experience to take myself out of my comfort zone and to truly explore my own potential. Through it I feel I have developed a disciplined and informed yoga practice as well as some of the vocabulary to express my own unique experience. Yet, in its subtle and cunning way, yoga continues to reveal opportunities for learning to its practitioners. Though my regular practice, the weekly class I teach as well as the recent auditions I have participated in, I recognize my personal progress as well as the vast opportunity for continued growth.

I will admit that dedicating at least one weekend a month for the last 6 months to the training program has been a sacrifice that my family and friends respect, but do not always fully understand. It’s difficult to decline an offer to a good friend’s birthday party or tickets to an event, but yoga has empowered me to remain committed to my own pursuits, and the most intimate people in my life acknowledge the powerfully positive effect that yoga has had on my life. In fact, my love of yoga has become so infectious that it has inspired many of my loved ones to begin or re-engage in their own physical practice. This last detail, is one I am most proud of as it demonstrates how wonderfully powerful yoga is as it quietly integrates itself into my life and my relationships with my loved ones.

I’m about 35 days away from graduating from my Yoga Teacher Training Program which has been such a profoundly personal experience with that I am already craving more. My ambitious dreamer mind has already had me searching the web for various teaching opportunities. Though the omniscient magic of Google algorithms, my Facebook feed and email inbox have become flooded with yoga trainings, events, readings and other promotional yoga-related items. Between $120.00 Lulus and $4,000 once in a lifetime yoga retreats to Bali, I’ve come to recognize how easy I could pour money into my training -the investment I made in myself.

I’ve brought these thoughts to my mat to help me reconnect with my intention to do yoga and teach yoga.

Abiding Practice can remind us that there is nothing we need for wholeness that does not already exist within us.

Judith Hanson Lasater – Living Your Yoga

I’ve come to recognize that at this time in my training, I could easily get swept up in the excitement of learning and the desire to master my skills. I feel it’s best for me to slow down and really start to hone and refine the skills I have learned to ensure my foundational understanding of yoga teaching is not overly complicated with ego nor my own unique voice lost in someone else’s methodology. Therefore, my practical side is patiently restraining myself from signing up for additional trainings so I can allow myself to truly explore and reap the benefits of the 200 hr training that I have dedicated myself to for so many months.

I will return to read this post over the coming months so I can reconnect with this intention as I continue on my yoga journey.